Top NASA Candidate Lyles Takes Name From Hat

A top candidate for the NASA Administrator job reportedly has taken his name out of consideration because taking the post would cause too much of a financial hardship for his family.

Retired Air Force General Lester Lyles, 62, told the Dayton Daily News that Obama Administration officials had indicated he was the top candidate for the job and appealed to his patriotism to try to get him to take the post.

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Lyles, the former chief of Air Force Space & Missile Systems Command, is one of several rumored candidates for the job, and only one of them appears to remain in the running.

Retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration, a key military and foreign policy advisor to the president, took another administration job as special envoy to Sudan.

Steve Isakowitz, a former NASA Comptroller, is staying on as Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Energy.

Former U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, who has ties to NASA's Johnson Space Center, appears to be out of the running. Lori Garver, a top space policy advisor to Obama who was a Clinton administration appointee to NASA, has been mentioned as a likely candidate for the NASA Deputy Administrator job.

And that leaves former astronaut Charlie Bolden, who has the backing of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, who flew with Bolden on a shuttle mission in January 1986.